Specification-Driven Delivery

Drydock

Repeatably Build Working Software from Specifications

Embedded Agile methodology

Embedded Test-Driven Development

Process to deliver reproducible results

Thirty Seconds of Background

What Is Specification-Driven Design?

Instead of prompting the LLM one request at a time, you write a specification.

Specifications defines the software behavior
The LLM builds the software.
Your software can be rebuilt on demand.
Your software gets better by updating the specification.

Specification-Driven Design is the modern approach to building software.

The Gap: Specification Size

SDD quality is related to prompt size and complexity.

The Gap: The Reproducibility Problem

25 years of best practices: Agile and test-driven development.
Without process, you cannot reproduce your builds.
Working software you cannot reproduce is not working software.

The insight

What Does Best Practice Mean?

Welcome Commander

You are the Commander - the Product Owner - and the LLM is your Agile Best Practices Team.

Agile

How developers ship at major companies. Discovery, Decomposition, Planning, Kanban, Review. Stories, spikes, acceptance criteria, and definition of done.

Test-Driven Development

Tests, acceptance criteria, and guardrails are written up front in Python.

Introducing Drydock

SAIL - Governed Blueprint driven Delivery

S · SET UP A · ANALYZE I · IMPLEMENT L · LOOP

SAIL is an agile process and test driven development software development life cycle.

Set up your system and import your notes or LLM-created specifications.
Analyze decomposes work into stories, spikes, and dependencies.
Implement builds working software with optimized context.
Loop and Refit with change tickets or specification edits.

SAIL also creates project documentation.

Rigging builds with your common stack rules and branding.

We changed your role

You are the Commander

The Commander steers the course

The Commander is the Agile Product Owner.

The LLM is your Agile Best Practices Team.

Compass

COMPASS.md defines project guardrails and intent.
ANALYZE_COMPASS.md supports drydock analyze.
PLAN_COMPASS.md supports drydock plan.

QuarterDeck

The web interface to the team.

MANIFEST.md

The graph database build plan. Edit it within QuarterDeck.

S · SET UPAIL

Laying the keel

pipx install drydock-sdd drydock config set ... drydock init MyApp

Drydock requires a subscription to an LLM service. Recommended: Sonnet (Claude) or GPT-5.4 (Codex).

SA · ANALYZEIL

Charting the course

Sources→ import→ analyze→ ANALYSIS.md→ plan→ MANIFEST.md

drydock import markdown, source code, Spec Kit, or loose notes.
drydock analyze decomposes your Epic into stories, acceptance criteria, blockers, and questions.
ANALYSIS.md contains proposed features, stories, and acceptance criteria for review.
drydock plan creates blueprints and MANIFEST.md.
MANIFEST.md is the authoritative build graph.

The core differentiator

The QuarterDeck is your Web Console

An optimized communication path between the Commander and the crew.

drydock run quarterdeck starts your local server.

The engine

The Manifest - a Build Plan Dependency Graph

drydock plan turns analysis into typed Blueprints + Manifest.
The LLM estimates story points (token cost) using the dependency graph.
Drydock stacks the correct minimal context into build prompts.
Context is engineered, not hoped for. Builds become reproducible.
drydock rigging compact reduces context for builders and users.

SAI · IMPLEMENTL

IMPLEMENT - Sailing the frontier

MANIFEST.md→ build→ Working Software

drydock build walks the graph and builds the next runnable step.
Every step is verified against test-driven development acceptance criteria.
Run steps in sequence until the build is complete.
drydock build score measures delivery health across seven dimensions.

For teams

Rigging

Your branding, stack rules, and conventions — built automatically.

All your projects will look consistent.

Builder/user prompt compaction keeps context lean.

Builder

The full specification is required to implement a feature.

Consumer

Use the compacted manifest. No implementation details are required.

drydock rigging compact compacts consumer rigging.

SAIL · LOOP

The Refit

Option 1: refit remaps direct specification file edits using git commits.
Option 2: refit ties change tickets to Blueprints.
Option 3: the /refit skill brainstorms and creates change tickets. /apply-refit applies the refit.
Summary: Specifications are ordered. Minimal drift.

Why Drydock

The differentiator is PROCESS
The process is Agile and TDD

Vibe coding	No spec, no process — speed, then drift.
Spec-driven design	A specification, but no process to reproduce the build.
Drydock	Specification + TDD + Agile: Commander decides, the team develops.

The goal: working software you can reliably iterate with an easy path to rebuild anytime.

Get started

Take it for a sail.

pipx install drydock-sdd drydock init MyApp # chart your course

Open spec · open methodology · looking for alpha Commanders.
Report your voyage — feedback and issues: github.com/webcloudstudio/Drydock/issues